Overwatch: Shift Point
by kasterrev
Summary: Whispers of a lost machine from Tracer's past calls her to action. A new technology forces Tesla on the run. Their unexpected journey pushes them to work together if they hope to survive the demon's of their past.
1. Chapter 1: Crash Landing

**Chapter 1: Crash Landing**

 **Welcome to the story. Feel free to leave a comment for suggestions and**

 **anything else you think would help improve my writing. Thank you!**

* * *

The world jerked around her, pushing Tracer from her stupor. She gave her head a short shake hoping it would loosen the daze, but it hardly helped. Figures. Getting a quick slam to the back of the head often left her feeling like this for hours. If only Winston were around so she had someone to complain to.

A quick scan of the room revealed boxes, more boxes, and fancy pair of large, circular handcuffs binding her to the wall. Not really her style, these ones.

She closed her eyes again and listened. The deep hum reverberating through the walls and warming her chest told her she was in a vehicle. A slight sway in her stomach felt too smooth or quick to be from something on land or ocean.

She smiled. Just what she had hoped for, a flying Talon ship. And she was trapped somewhere in the middle, no chance of escape, and weaponless at the same time. Christmas had come early after all.

A door in front of her flashed a shadow and a man stepped in. Not a particularly handsome man, or a very intelligent looking one with his smirking eyes focused on just her and with a laughable lack of attention to his surroundings. He clearly had no idea what was coming.

"To have caught an Overwatch agent, and Tracer herself, no less!" he said, his high pitched voice barked like a whiny poodle. "Hardly as exciting as I had hoped." Right he was. Tracer had practically laid herself in front of him in order to be caught. How a man like this made it up past foot soldier in Talon's tiers is beyond her comprehension.

Four men followed in after him, armed to the teeth with knives strapped to their chest and a beastly gun hanging from their fingertips. She might have been scared if the cheesy helmets didn't scream big-fat Talon lackeys.

The things Tracer endures for the sake of good and humanity. Good thing she had a schedule to keep.

"Oy, I think I got on the wrong flight. I was on the seven thirty heading for england?" she said, giving a chuckle.

The poodly man flashed an eyebrow and then stepped aside, revealing a gangly figure cast in shadow. He took a step closer, revealing a face of breathtaking contortion. It was as though someone had hit him with a tree branch, then a log, and finally topped it all off with a little bit love from someone's truck tires. Simply, the bloke wasn't a very good looking fellow, with pieces of flesh sitting about his face in strangely twisted chunks. And speaking of chunks, Tracer felt a few dancing up from her stomach at the sight of him.

The man smiled, a horrifying demonstration of twisted flesh, but his eyes remained as cold as chilled ice, "I've heard you were a funny one," he said, his voice sounding deep and smooth, unlike his face. That actually surprised her.

"So you like my jokes? I got more of them."

"I'm certain. Though I'm more interested in hearing how you found out about this ship. It would seem we have a faithless mole." She really wished that smile would go away now.

"Not really sure what you mean," she said, pulling on every ounce of her training to appear innocent, "I was on my way downtown when this man knocked me out cold."

The man's eyes turned into a stony stare. He wasn't buying it, and he knew that she knew it. "Again," he commanded with a chill that almost touched her spine.

"Well Blimey, if I knew, do you really think I would _just_ tell you? Give me more credit that that, pah- _lease._ "

The ugly fellow stared a moment at her before he turned to the poodle man and waved him to walk over. They began to whisper in a tone too quietly to hear, but Tracer guessed it had something to do with torturing or brainwashing her to get information. She decided this might be a good time to start the plan.

Well, she had already started the plan, but this definitely was the more risky step compared to the first which involved getting beat up, knocked out, and finding herself captured on a talon ship, all while trying not to get killed in the process. Winston had argued for days about the sheer stupidity of it, and he was right. She was sure to find herself mucking up the situation somehow along the way, but that didn't stop her. A mucky situation gave her a challenge that any lady like herself needs to stay entertained.

She risked a look at the six guards. Even at six, they wouldn't be an issue. The issue would be the man in front of her. He was no mere chap and a leader amongst the lackeys, unlike the poodle man. That meant he would be an unpredictable threat. She decided from now on she would only call him by one name, and one name only. One that would remind her of the dangerous mystery behind this man's identity.

"So BarkFace," she continued, looking up at the man. "You going to tell me where we're going?"

The man didn't even flicker with an emotion at the name calling. "At this moment," he said, "We are flying fifteen thousand feet heading north."

That was interesting. Not the bit on their height and direction, but that he said anything at all. Everyone knew she was pilot and had some basic understanding of her abilities, so only an idiot would have given her that kind of information. He didn't seem _too_ idiotic, but there the information flew freely. Was it a trap?

"Well that doesn't much help me, now does it?" She managed a scoff and flicked her head to the right in a display of mock irritation. Meanwhile, she started counting, tapping her finger against the cufflink.

"Sir, why not question her now," poodle man blurted in a near whine. "I have methods we can employ right here without my tools."

Barkface glanced at him. Tracer couldn't make out his expression, but whatever it was, it caused the other to back down and tuck his tail between his legs, if he only had one. This ugly fellow sure had a way with stares, though with a face like that, couldn't be all that hard to manage.

He slowly turned back to Tracer, his eyes tight and still. "Tell me, Tracer, you're notorious for finding yourself out of sticky situations. Is that not true?"

She had to count faster now. It was hard, but she could tell she was nearly in rhythm. It had to be perfect in timing, and perfect timing was her specialty.

"I think," she said slowly, trying not to lose count her mind, "that there's something to be said of my noggin' and tight spaces."

Barkface grunted, "It certainly does."

Tracer resisted the urge to frown. The man was making _small talk_ with her. None of responses he made didn't follow the evil-lacky-script she'd come to expect form Talon. But at this point, it didn't really matter.

She figured out the timing.

"Love to stay and continue this little chat, but I got a date with your navigational computer. Cheers!" and she tapped into her power.

The world froze and dropped to a glowing shade of blue, as though she had been swallowed in a sapphire gem. She could see through the walls, the skies outside of them and the ground far below. She could make out endless desert, running off in both direction with a spec of something silvery huddled in the distance. Probably a small city.

The shackles slipped through her, along with the wall, and she found herself moving back in her own timeline. A lot of people didn't know that she was completely aware of her own slippage back through time, and she could control the speed of it as well. It allowed her to scope her surroundings before popping herself into a tight spot that had been perfectly safe seconds ago. But it had it's danger zones.

Slipping back in time was like setting a timer. Set it for five seconds, she pops out five seconds backwards. Set it for one, she pops out a second later. For whatever reason she could not at any time ever move backwards and just jump out at will while reversing. Winston didn't even know why, and that meant she didn't have a chance of figuring it out herself. It did mean she had to know exactly when to pop out, especially in a flying plane, where timing means ending up in the room behind her or outside the ship plummeting towards the ground. Not the best place to be.

The world flashed like lightning bolt as she found herself in the middle of the navigational room which was rather boring square with two columns. A shelf of computer monitors and controls lined the walls. Two men stood on either side of her, staring blankly, probably confused at the popping sound and the sudden appearance of a british woman.

She blushed, "Sorry, have a hard time holding that sound in, if y'know what I mean."

The men paused, clearly still confused and she didn't give them a second to think about it another time. She dropped to a crouch, swung out her leg, throwing the first off his feet and onto his back with a satisfying grunt. The second guard tried, he surely did, but it was hopeless. She zipped backwards, finding herself crouched right behind him. Seeing as she was already in the position for it, she rolled onto her back and gave him a right good kick in the bum, sending the man flying forward and landing on top of the other.

She stood up and waddled over to the two scrambling dorks. At this point, two swift, carefully placed kicks knocked them out. She sighed, looking around and seeing the room empty of any conscious fellows to fight. She had hardly tried and the battle was over.

She frowned a moment, looking around the room, almost as if she expected to see someone standing in the corner, staring at her, but it was empty. She shook her head and walked up to one of the consoles. It was a thin beam of hope that had brought her here. Her contact had been right about a few things, where the Talon chaps would be and most likely be and that they would bring her to a ship, but this moment decided everything else. If this ship was the one she thought it was, it held the information to lead her to the first clue as to where the Slipstream had inevitably crashed.

* * *

Tesla had a problem. He laid back in his chair, feet propped up and carefully avoiding a stack of papers on the fine mahogany desk of one of Oasis' finest ministers. And despite all this plush and pizzazz, he still couldn't quite get comfortable in leather chair.

The older man sitting on the other side of the desk had a long, scraggly beard, powdered with a dusty grey. He had a scrunched up look about his face like crumpled paper. He didn't seem to notice the feet placed so rudely on his desk, but that was because he had given them a hard stare half an hour ago the second Tesla had plopped them on the table.

In truth, Tesla did feel bad about had had just happened. It wasn't one of his worst mistakes he had made, but it definitely wasn't one of his best. The problem was he couldn't afford to look guilty, even if his stomach twisted a bit as the tight look in the minister's face got a little tighter by the second.

"Tesla," the man started, his voice crackling only slightly with the touch of age, "this is definitely an explosion."

Tesla sucked the feet off of the desk and let them plop to the floor and then leaned forward all in one casual motion. "It was more of a burst."

The older man raised a brow, "and how would you characterize an explosion against a burst?"

Tesla tapped his chin, nodding as if he we _actually_ taking that question seriously. "Explosions are so much more elaborate and destructive."

The minister nodded and pulled up a sheet of paper. He slipped on pair of reading glasses and cleared his throat. "Four light constructors destroyed, seven computers destroyed, twenty two _types_ of monitoring equipment have become-," he paused, frowning, "have become permanently _unusable_. Well, that's certainly one way of putting it. I suppose this is the part," he said, tapping the page where it must have been written, "where you ripped the paper out of Blenn's hands and began writing it yourself?"

Tesla nodded immediately. No point in denying it.

The man leaned back in his chair, the lines on his face wrinkling more deeply around his eyes, casting disfigured shadows. He just sat there, staring at the paper silently, and letting that silence dig deeper and deeper into Tesla's twisting stomach. After a good long minute, he raised his eyes towards him.

"You've certainly given me quite the challenge this time, Mr. Dorn, I'm just not sure why you persist to torment me. You are not unaware of the situation in which I am placed when this continues to happen. Do you see that stack there?" he said, pointing to a rather large stack of papers on the right side of his desk, pages sputtering out in random places.

"I did notice them," he replied, trying to keep the disdain from his voice. He hated paperwork, that's why Blenn did it all.

"Those are all the projects being submitted to the Foundation of Budgets." Tesla figured only Oasis could come up with such a terrible name. "Not a hefty amount, wouldn't you agree?"

Tesla nodded again, he did that a lot in these discussions.

The minister pointed to a shelf on his left, full of folders and another spat of sputtering papers peaking out from folder the size of chemistry text books, as though there were all desperate to get free. " _That_ is all the paperwork submitted to the FB just _collateral_ damage from _your_ experiments."

Tesla frowned and stared to his left, flicking out a lazy finger pointing towards another shelf, "You moved it away from the shelves of my half completed projects and budget extensions." Those shelves were hopelessly jammed with paperwork. He felt pride in that one.

The older man sighed, and shook his head. It was usually the sigh that finally got Tesla to shut up. He let his head fall only slightly. "I know this isn't good minister, but they say progress takes a long time, they just forgot to mention that it's expensive too and hard to budget."

"It certainly is that," the minister said, grinning slightly. Tesla felt his spirits raise just a little. "Do you at least _feel_ like you're making progress?"

It wasn't the first time the minister asked, but it's one that he rarely felt ready to answer. His experiment some twenty levels above them had gone horribly wrong; not unusual. But for every failure there was often just a spike of data, a glimpse into the wirings that made up the fabrics of their universe, that would be quickly followed by an explosion. Despite all that trouble, a glimpse was about as revealing into the universe as a book summary was to the plot twist in a book.

No, despite all his efforts and many burnt eyebrows, Tesla had to finally admit it to himself. Years of this wasn't just weighing on the Ministry of Energy anymore, it was beginning to weigh on him too. He could feel it as he woke up in the mornings. The thought of it made his heart feel like it dropped half an inch.

Finally, he let out a heavy breath. "I'm getting information, but there seems to be laws keeping me from piercing through. I know it's there, it's touchable, and it's infinite, but I don't know how Albert did it. Still don't." The words moved through his teeth like acid and twisted his stomach into a full knot.

The minister let out a forced coughed and cocked a brow, " _Albert,_ eh?" the man said, eyeing him and shifting as though someone had given him a hard chair. "Well, _Albert,_ had a lifetime to figure it out. You can't expect to make his achievement overnight. But surely you've made some progress. Is there nothing else left to try?"

And that was the final cue, the guillotine to all of their conversations. "I have," he said. At this point, Tesla frankly didn't have anything else to share. He was hitting the wall he had been hitting for the last several years, and nothing was going to just pop out of the sky and break it open.

The man stood with him, but Tesla was already halfway to the door. "Hold, Tesla, and listen." he only stopped once his hand rested on the handle. "I know what this project means to you and your family. I know what it means to this world. You've made more progress in this research than anyone else, and if anyone has even a chance in this blasted tower of making a breakthrough, it could only be Albert's own son."

Tesla held the cool knob, the metal chilling his skin pleasingly, and the words settling and untying that knot he felt. He actually smiled. Slowly, he half turned to the minister, not feeling brave enough to face him, just in case something wet and salty decided to make its way out of his eyes.

"Thank you," he whispered, before opening the door and slipping through it.

* * *

Whatever problems they thought Tracer couldn't handle, they were wrong. She could take an army the size of a city, single handedly, weaponless. Well, maybe not weaponless, but blimey would she try. It would take at least half the ship's crew to get through that door. So she let herself feel a little more than offended when not one bloke came blasting through the doors, barrels blazing with plasma shells and smoke. Nope, apparently a classy british lady such as herself wasn't worth the time or bullets.

She could have been good with that, up until the lights started flashing red, a few explosions sounded, and an eerie whistling sounded started getting louder and louder throughout the ship. The light feeling in her stomach started growing along with just a pinch of panic.

The ship was definitely beginning to fall and she needed to get her information fast.

She had set a small black cube on the table, apparently a nano computer that held a portion of Athena's program, or so Winston claimed. It would be enough to hack into any console she'd come across. The blimey scientist could have at least told her how long it would take.

" _Science can't be rushed, it can only be encouraged,_ " she could almost hear him say, to which she grimaced. She was literally a cosmic personification of the word _rush_. And how does one encourage a nano computer.

She tapped the small cube lightly. "Oy, you can do it buddy! We could be crashing any minute and explode into smithereens, but I bet you got it all under control, Love!" she stared at the cube, feeling a sensation of embarrassment wash through her body. "Winston…" she whispered as a silent cure.

Something hot flared across her face and everything grew silent to her right. She ducked down behind the console half expecting an explosion, but the sharp ring exploding in her right ear told her all she needed to know. Someone nearly shot her square in the head.

She risked a peek around the corner of the console and saw three men pour into the room, with a fourth standing at the door, gun raised. She counted herself lucky that he had missed when she had practically been a sitting target. Where Talon drew up these curb suckers, Tracer didn't want to know.

They were enclosing on her fast, giving her a second at most to think, but that's all she needed. She tapped into her power, feeling her own timeline rushing through her chest, circling into the device, and without even thinking, she sped it up.

The rest of the world slowed. The wailing alarm dropped in depth, sounding like a grown man yelling. She looked around the room, her eyes moving like heavy bowling balls in her eye sockets, a strange side effect of speeding up time. The three men falling towards her like statues were spread out expertly. As much as she loved to belittle them, the Talon were not all fails and flops. These blokes could rightly trap her. She could down all three of them, but the fourth in the back wasn't moving. He could easily gun her down the moment she stopped to take down any one.

All these amazing powers pouring through her body, and she still felt stuck. If only the man in the back with his gun lowering weren't there.

Her heart felt like it jumped in her own chest, _he's lowering his gun?_

Although the world moved like slugs around her, the man was definitely lowering her gun. She couldn't wait, not even in a millionth of a second.

It would happen like lightning. She moved around in a flash, crouching, knocking the first man off of his feet and forcing him to fall on top of her. He became a nice cushy pillow against a few bullet from his supposed friends and buddies. She slipped through the air and appeared next the second, pushing his firing gun into a spray of death towards the third and then knocking the head of it into his chin. That guy wouldn't be getting up anytime soon.

She twisted around, grabbing a discarded gun and zipping to the side, hoping to miss whatever shot was coming her way from the fourth, and then found something cold, hard and pointy touching her lower back.

"Turn around slowly," the voice deep reverberating voice spoke behind her. _Barkface_.

She slowly turned around to find a craggy faced man, noting his piercing blue eyes hidden behind some bulbish looking eye sockets, as though something had him in the face with a bat in each eye, twice, and stomped on them just to be sure. This really chap wasn't a looker.

Her eyes slowly dropped to the guns touching her stomach, grip out facing her. And not just any guns, her pistoles.

She frowned, "Oy, the gun goes the other way, Love."

The man merely stared at her, expressionless. Or angry. Or happy. Hard to say with a face like that. It could be a trick, but it was an awful one, since the first moment she met him he confused her. If it hadn't been for his clue about their descent, she might have accidentally rewound herself into the top floor or outside the plane all together. With that info, she could adjust easily. Now she found that a little hard to excuse as coincidence.

The man move the other hand out to the side, fingers open, a gesture of disarmament. No point in denying it now. He wanted her to take the guns. She took the set and immediately pointed it at him, but as soon as she grabbed the gun, he turned and starting walking towards the door.

"The ship hasn't much longer before the engines reach critical heat levels, less than a minute," he called back just as he passed the door, "We'll be over Oasis in just a few seconds. I suggest you take what you've come for and leave immediately. You won't have another chance."

The ship rumbled and shook, nearly sending her flying off her feet. A part of her wanted to run after the man and knock him out, but what good would that do? The ship certainly felt like it was about to blow up. Her eyes were drawn to the cube sitting on the console, flashing green. The loading was done.

She ran towards it, gripped it, and slipped backwards in time, fading through the ship and watching it sail away in the air. Not a second later, it exploded. Her last gleaming thought was towards the man onboard who had saved her life before her whole world crashed into darkness.

Tesla cursed as he slipped into his large executive suite. His room looked like something that had barely survived the first omnic crisis, with clothes smeared across everything like shrapnel from a bomb, which in his case wasn't too far from the truth. The room had endured a few small explosions in its time.

He sighed, picking one of his white shirts up and tossing it to the side for effect. He really should clean up his place, or have Blenn do it. He made his way across the battlefield, conveniently ignoring the white cylinder sitting in the middle of the room, and stopped at the three windows overlooking Oasis.

Oasis was a masterpiece of human engineering, a figurative sculpture of gleaming hope out of a hopeless, dry desert landscape. It had taken many brilliant minds and very interesting sponsors with deep pockets to make it all possible. But despite inconsistent background of _how_ the city came about, it didn't stop it from being blindingly beautiful.

Light glimmered like gold on the water resting hundreds of feet below him. Then, sitting like monuments on the waterbed were the different scientific ministries in all their might and glory, basking in the silver glow of the sun. They seemed like small ancient palaces sitting on flooded islands, all polished and clean, made of fine stones and metals. It often made him forget he was housing in the most impressive piece of them all. The gilded tower hotel.

It wasn't just a hotel, of course. The ministry of tourism wouldn't let anyone call it anything else for commercial opportuntiy reasons. It certainly had the most luxurious suites to be found in the world with the most elaborate and impressive views of the desert ever to be found, conveniently forgetting that it really was just a desert. But every other level had it's ministry of science doing its thing, whatever it was. He only knew of his level.

The skies were turning orange with dusk on its way in. The dunes glittered in the setting sun, like specs of fine metals had rained across the land for miles and miles.

Turning back to the room, he couldn't almost remember being back at his Mom's home with the walls decorated with heirlooms and expensive paintings. But even then, living in the mansion of his parents, life didn't feel any less fake than it did now. The expensive woods and marble floor felt surreal after having been surrounded by it for year. He swallowed it and tried to ignore the feeling.

He slid off his jacket and threw it onto the couch to the left of the window and noticing again for the millionth time the white cylinder sitting in the center of the room. He couldn't ignore it forever.

Normally he would just let it sit there to constantly remind him how far he'd come, and how far he still had to go. It was a machine half finished by his father. All the scientist, including himself, had researched the thing particle by particle, and that wasn't figurative speech. They had literally taken a particle scan of the entire machine and scanned it, hoping it would reveal the inner workings of the device.

However, he knew something no one else knew about it, and today he didn't feel like he could keep it a secret much longer.

He stood up to the device, seeming like a solid piece of white painted metal. It felt as though it starred back up at him, peering into his soul, begging him to operate it. If he could get it to work, everything would change as the minister predicted. Why wouldn't it? They were talking about limitless, exhaustless energy. Even though also meant poking a hole through space and time, a minor detail. The machine could create a small, portable hole through space from which an infinite amount of energy could come through. It didn't even have to be very big. All of it very feasible except for the whole part where one cuts right through the fabric of _everything_..

His heart raced, the memories fluttering to life in his mind's eye. He could see his father creating the first one, a small metallic cube glowing brightly with white smoke. His father reached in and held it out, smiling. Tesla remembered that day fondly as he raised his hand and stared at it. That day had changed Tesla world forever.

The memory faded, and he was left to remember that he couldn't do what only his father had done. Lucky for him, no one else had gotten nearly as close to creating the battery like his father had either.

"Limitless energy, huh?" he whispered, staring at the cylinder through his fingers. He didn't know why he decided to do it in that moment, but before he could think, his hand was reaching inside and opening a small compartment at the top. He reached in and pulled out a silver ring and closed the compartment.

He should tell Blenn in case everything went terribly wrong. He should wait. But something inside snapped with that memory, the smile on his father's face as he stared at his greatest invention, perhaps _the_ greatest invention ever.

If he somehow did manage to poke a hole and get energy pouring through from one reality to another, how would he regulate it? The ring. It was something of his own creation and quite the ingenious design. It could regulate nearly anything and acted as a safety net between whatever world he poked into and the one he was quite fond of, this one. The idea of tapping limitless energy caused problems the same way bombs did with structures and, well, life in general.

His hands began to shake as they held the ring. By removing the ring, nothing would hold the machine back. The safety net worked both ways. It kept the machine from reaching full power but also protected him and his experiments from killing him in case he misused the device. But that was ten year ago. He had run thousands of experiments and understood the technology perfectly. So what kept him from just flipping the switch now?

When his father had passed, he put the ring there immediately to protect the device. No one but him knew it wasn't apart of the original device, so no one questioned it. But he knew the reason was just for self preservation, it was for fear. His father had kept his research close and no one could touch his machines except for him. The idea of handing the machine over felt like betraying him, but the weight of his thousands of failures weight on him today more than ever.

He reached over and flipped the switch.

* * *

The wind gave a ravenous howl all around her, screaming at her to wake up. She jerked, blinking her eyes and suddenly becoming aware of how windy it was.

"Blimey, again? I just did this," she grumbled, rubbing her eyes.

Tracer loved the wind, but this was ridiculous. She tried to stand up, but the world span around her at the motion, reminding her she shouldn't have had that plate of fish and chips before getting intentionally mugged.

 _Intentionally mugged._

She jerked again, flattening herself immediately as the memory flooded back. The oxygen must still be a little thin at this level, she didn't even realize she was falling. The explosion must have given her quite a whammy.

"Blimey," she said again, looking at the ground below. Luckily she was falling towards a city, that much she could tell immediately. The words of Barkface started echoing back to her mind. In her frustration and confusion, she nearly forgot, but it blinked back into her mind. "Oasis," she mouthed.

Priority one, find a place to land. Priority two, don't die while doing it. Most people think it's the other way around, but those people haven't ever taken a good spill out of a plane before, and this was her second time. She risked a look at her chrono accelerator, and her worst fears were realized. The blue glowing essence within flickered. The machine needed to recharge. She whipped her head up. "No _time_ to waste then," she giggled.

Her target became clear. A tall, cone stack tower stood near the center of the city. She directed herself towards it, gliding through the air and riding it like a feather; a heavy feather with no aerodynamics. Her eyes scanned the many levels looking for openings, and there were a few. The places seemed to still be under construction, with exposed panels and metal frames peaking out from all over the upper floors.

She felt like slamming her first into her head. She wouldn't make it into any of the open floors in time and her chrono accelerator would burn out at any second. The building zoomed towards her and she would have only one chance. Her window came into view, the only one she could feasibly break through without totally killing herself before she had a chance to rewind.

The window enclosed. Three hundred feet. Two hundred feet. One hundred feet. She quickly flipped in the air and huddled into the fetal position, allowing the side of her body to absorb the brunt of the impact. It felt like hitting a cement wall just before it crumbled. The air knocked out of her and she could feel several somethings burst and crack inside of her as she tumbled, flopped, and slammed against a person in the room. _A person?_

Her vision was twisted and fading fast. She glanced up to see a white cylinder glowing brighter and brighter and noticed she couldn't close her eyes from it. They had become unresponsive. Darkness began to creep up around the corners of her eyes. She was dying. With one last ounch of hope, she tapped into the chrono accelerator and hoped there was energy left.

She pushed the feeling into her chest and had something quite unexpected happen. Everything flashed white and abruptly exploded, and then froze. For a true blue first she moved back in time slowly _and with control_ , almost as if she were moving her limbs in real time, as opposed to reversed time. She _felt_ as though she could stop at any time.

Her body rolled back, the pain inside her zipping up and disappearing with a blink. She bounced up and down off the floor, slid and twisted lengthwise, and then floated up to the window. She let go and that instant. Everything responded in kind.

The explosion sucked back into the center of the room where the cylinder stood. She flew forward and hit the ground, rolling, but not with nearly the impact as it had been moments ago.

Tracer had learned something unique about her powers. Every time she rewound backwards, she lost just a tad bit of inertia from the point that she left off. Her timing landed her to instant at which she had hit the window when a partial of the impact was absorbed. The combined moment and loss of inertia from the rewind made hitting the ground feel more like falling down a set of stairs as opposed to hitting a wall terminal velocity. One tends to be a little more dangerous than the other.

She stood up, expecting her suit and finding it cut-less. One of winston's greatest creations, an elastic that refused to slice open no matter how sharp the object.

At the other end of the room a man groaned and lifted himself up.

"Did a yellow woman just crash through my window, or am I going crazy?" he said, holding his head and looking around the room. He noticed the broken glass and then followed it to the shattered window. He then shrugged and nodded, as though less than impressed. "I've seen worse redecoration. Always thought my room could use a little more _bling_."

He stood up and led his gaze from the stream of glass to her. The man was a bit of mess, wearing something of a lab coat, his hair standing up all of his head as though someone had thrown a grenade in his face, and surprisingly tanned skin for his home-body-like appearance. But his blue eyes seemed to peer out from beyond the silver lined spectacles sitting on his nose.

"Well, Love, I planned a part in your room and sent in invitation, but it may have gotten lost in the fall. Air mail isn't so reliable these days."

He adjusted the glasses and tapped his cheek lightly. "Well, the jaw still works," he then rotated left and right, bent downward and back upwards. "No pinched muscles, that's a relief," he said with a chuckle. The man was surprisingly calm for having just been hit by a flying woman.

"So," he said, finally making eye contact with her, "you are?"

* * *

Tesla was just grateful to be alive at this point. He was sure that the device would explode, ripping a hole through the local universe, and kill everything within a few parsecs. But in reality, that was the worst case and very unlikely scenario. More likely he would just have to move out into another suite following the aftermath.

The woman rested both hands on her hips and gave him a once over. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar. The yellow jumpsuit, the glowing thing on her chest, and the black hair that seemed to stand up all on its own. "Oh," he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully, you're one of the window cleaners, am I right? I haven't seen you guys in a week."

The woman's eyes grew a little wide, "You really haven't the faintest of who I am?" she said, the level of scoff in her voice irritating him slightly. "You get out much?"

"Well, I mean," he said, looking back at the broken window, "you do this to a lot of people, I'm guessing?"

She burst out laughing, grabbing her stomach and tumbling back towards the open window before catching herself. "No, Love, guess I just didn't think I'd meet someone who didn't. It's a treat."

"Glad to have- uh- treated you. But seriously, who-," he stopped as sirens began wailing out in the distance, echoing. Something in the distance exploded loudly. His wristwatch beeped and he tapped the side to answer it.

"Hey, Minister, ever-,"

"Tesla!" the voice cracked loudly from his wrist. He nearly grabbed the thing to throw it off. "Are you alright? The surveillance camera's have picked up something crashing onto your level. I think it may be your suite. Are you there now? Surveillance identified the object as a woman, a possibly dangerous fugitive."

He couldn't help but freeze, slowly raising his head to the woman who cheerfully bowed at him. It was at this moment that he realized two pistols were holstered to her body. He sighed tiredly. He needed to be more perceptive.

"Yeah, wrong number, or level- whatever. Let me know how that goes," he tapped the watch, ending the call.

The woman flashed him a look of surprise. He held up both hands, "look, I don't want trouble. It's been a busy day and you don't look like a mass-murderer. Probably a mercenary though? So just go about your business, and we'll call it square." He expertly left out the fact that she wouldn't get very far. Two feet out the door and the surveillance bots would be on her in a matter of minutes. Reinforcements would arrive, and he wouldn't have to give it a second thought for the rest of his life.

However, security would be the clean up clean up crew in this case. Whoever this woman was, she had the ability to survive crashing through those windows without a scratch, which means he likely was the only person capable of handling her. He just needed her to turn her back and hoped she wouldn't notice him readjusting his sleeve.

The woman eyed him a moment, and then shrugged. "I suppose I'll have to thank you later. Look me up sometime."

She turned and headed towards the door, leaving herself exposed. With a quick flick of his wrist, two small triangle shaped projectiles shot out and latched onto either pistole with ease. He held out his hand and both guns came soaring off her sides and falling right into his grip. He quickly wielded and pointed them at her.

She froze in place, slowly looking at her empty holsters and then raising both hands towards the air.

"Blimey idiotic," she muttered.

"Hey," he said, feeling a little offended, "I thought that was pretty good."

"Not you, Mate. _Me_." She sighed irritably. "I guess I'm a little out of practice. How did you do that, anyhow? You haven't moved an inch."

He tried not to smile more broadly, but couldn't help it. He'd been practicing that move for years in the making. "Trade secret, I'm afraid."

"We make a pair a then, I have one two."

A flash of blue light zoomed towards him. He tried to pull the trigger, but his fingers froze, and before he knew it, the light hand him on his back, with a knee pinning him to the ground and a rather smarmy british woman staring down at him. He wished he could smack that smile of her face.

"You're augmented too?" he said.

She shrugged, "Sort of," she held up both pistols and slowly lowered them towards him. "What's your secret?"

He eyed her a moment, trying to judge her bodies stance on him. She was leaning too far forward, which made this next trick a little too easy. He floated up, pulling himself towards the ceiling. The guns flew past his face as she flipped forward and spiraled off of him.

His body came to a slow stop as he let go of the pull and then let himself carefully, expertly, and quite stylishly land back on the floor, hands on hips. He nodded to himself. "I'm still pretty good at this, aren't I?"

She popped an eyebrow at him. "Mister, you seem to forget who's got the gun." She began to raise them, but it's aim jerk and twisted away. She frowned, gripped her gun tighter, and began raising again, but this time they span out of her hands, slid off to the floor, and slammed into the wall behind her.

"Telekinesis!" she yelped excitedly, twisting back to the guns and then shooting a look of surprise at him. "Blimey that's good." She look genuinely impressed, it almost made him drop his guard.

"No, not telekinesis, don't be silly, it's gravity! You can create gravity wells. I know a woman who can do that. But why am I not feeling the effects?" She did an odd wave with her hands back and forth like some exotic dance. "Not gravity?"

For a moment, he let his guard slip, mostly because she had her back half turned from him, leaving her partially vulnerable. And she didn't seem stupid enough to just let that happen, and it didn't quite feel like a bate. Was this woman really more interested in his abilities than the fight at hand?

"I use magnets," he said hesitantly, dropping his shoulders. He didn't know what to think.

"Magnets, where?" she said, looking around the room.

"Here," he patted his chest and then his arms. "Everywhere. I'm augmented with electrical magnets through my whole body. I can pull and push things at will. I also attached two MicroLatches to your pistoles earlier, just incase there weren't enough magnetic metals in your gun for me to push. They can stick to almost anything with incredible force."

He raised his arms and the guns slid back past her and stopped at his feet, and then pushed them back to her until they rest near her side.

She looked confused. "You sure went to a lot of effort to keep these out of my hands. Now you're giving them back?"

This time he shrugged. "Maybe I'm going crazy, but the fact that we're making conversation and not still banging fist and knuckle, leads me to believe you're not going to kill me. Why?"

She eyed him a moment, not even making a move towards the guns. "Why didn't you shoot me?"

Despite his hope, she had noticed. In that moment when she had moved with inexplicable speed, his fingers had frozen, unable to pull the trigger to defend himself. A flash of emotions stuck to his chest like oily sandpaper, rubbing slowly at him from the inside. There were memories tied to guns he wanted to forget.

"It's a long story," he sighed and let his guard down finally.

"Doesn't seem like you're terribly new at this. Your reflexes weren't-," she smiled, shifting her weight to the side and gripping her chin, "too terribly slow."

He laughed and nodded, "Well, let's just say it was a matter of career choices. So what now. You run away, I don't stop you, and we pretend this never happened?"

A stare came from her eyes he didn't expect. They seemed to look into him, past his lab coat and down deeper into his soul. "You could come with me," she said.

He found himself without words, a rare event."Go with you, a fugitive? I don't even kno-," he stopped as she stepped towards him and held out a hand, a new charming smile on her face.

"Lena Oxton," she said, eying him, "Pilot and protector with a pinch of calvary between both."

"Whatever that all means," he said, taking the hand and shaking lightly, "I'm Tesla Den, scientist, loner, and arsonist apparently," he said, glancing back at the cylinder to their side. A white, hazy smoke rose from within, glowing sharply in the sunlight. He had hoped it would work this time. The metal frame was odd and contorted, as though it had suddenly melted and frozen back into a solid piece. That would be something he would need to look into.

"So," she said, stepping up next to him, "no that you've gone awkwardly silent on both of us. What do you say?"

He shook his head, ignoring the glowing haze, "You're serious. I'm sorry, but why?"

She tilted her head to the side and zipping in a flash of light from where she was to directly behind the cylinder, putting herself between it and the broken window. "I get feelings about people, I guess you could say. Somethings about you is screaming something."

He frowned at where the blue streak had formed. "I can't tell if you're moving really fast or teleportation. What is that?"

"A little of both. You've got your fancy magnetism, but I myself have sort of a problem with time." She tapped a glowing circular device on her chest. Little circles of displaced light dance around the center, ticking away like some elaborate digital clock.

He shook his head, a million questions pouring into his head. Who in the blasted name _was_ this Lena Oxton? Why did she keep making him these offers? What did she mean a problem with time? And _why_ was the smoke still glowing when she stepped in front of the window, blocking the setting sun.

 _Glowing smoke?_ he thought, staring at the haze, only noticing that the smoke was less of a haze and more like millions of gassy tendrils reaching up into the air and swirling around. His heart thumped wildly in his chest. He'd heard of this phenomenon before, even seen it. He remembered it.

His hands grabbed at the edges of the cap that sheltered the inner component. He scratched at the edges, desperate to tear it off, but the metal hand melted over the lip, sealing it.

He shot two MicroLatches, one at the top cap and one at a nearby support beam. It would be strong enough, he hoped, to handle the force. He reached up his sleeve and flipped a small switch. The metal screeched loudly and then ripped off, smashing into where the other latch rested on the beam.

He shoved his head over the lip and saw a small, white glowing cube. The tendrils reached up from within and spiraled like a distant, glowing galaxy. His breath abandoned him.

"It's worked," he gasped. "It actually _worked_."

"What worked?" a voice said from in front of him. He shook his head, quickly returning from the abyss of his own shock. "Love, you alright? What sort of thing is that right there? Looks futuristic."

"We go to go!" he nearly yelled, dread pouring into his stomach like oil on water. This was bad, very bad. The world wasn't ready for this. _He_ wasn't ready for this. "Sometime around now would be good."


	2. Chapter 2: The Jump

**Chapter 2: The Jump**

" _The test failed again. I can't get her to materialize in one spot. She's moving through space like energy, but randomly condensing and dissipating. Sometimes I can hear her begging for help, repeatedly. Sometimes all I can hear are her cries. I can't give up. I'll find a way to bring her back. I won't stop until I do."_

 _The Oxton Retrieval Project reports, Winston, Day 64, Page 1_

* * *

Tracer did the last button on the labcoat. It was a little big for her, with the sleeve stopping just at her fingertips. "My disguise feels a little bit overdone," she said, wagging the sleeves at him before rolling them up to her wrists.

"People here live with their faces buried in notes and last thing they'll notice is your sleeves. The bigger problem will be the scanning systems. It can identify a person by scanning their breath."

Tracer stopped dead in her tracks and rested her hands on her hips, "and how are we supposed to get past my _breathing_ problem? I do it a lot, you know."

Tesla gave a nervous smile, "we should be okay. I have magnetic field that will confuse the the surveillance and any bot we come across. But you'll need these,"he said and shoved a pair of funny looking sunglasses at her.

She slipped them on. Surprisingly, nothing got dimmer. The darkening effect was one way. "These are?"

"A special set of sunglasses that will confuse the facial recognition algorithms of the surveillance bots. Took forever to perfect."

She eyed him a moment, ignoring all the questions as to why he needed _this_ to be made, and then she sighed. "You sure you want to go through with this. I'm not exactly liked around here." Apart of her had hoped that Oasis hadn't fall in with the rest of nations in Overwatch's worldwide ban, but apparently it did. Sometime she'd have to look at which country she legally could do good work in.

"Look, it's complicated. But yes, I'm sure. We just need to get to a platform on the mid level. I keep my wheels there and I've messaged someone I trust who's going to keep the engine warm for us." And he walked off down the hallway without another word. This bloke sure had a way of exiting conversations at maximum irritancy, but he was her ticket out of here. She swallowed her pride and followed.

They were on the verge of running. Tesla, from that point, had acted very oddly. Ever since pulling whatever in the world it was from the pedestal like device, the bloke treated it like some unholy relic that would burst into flames at any moment. Nonetheless, he agreed to get out of the city, but not go with her beyond that

The thought gave her a cringe. She had made the offer to join her on a sudden impulse she couldn't explain. It could have been that he hadn't killed her when he had the chance, or his apparent skill with his abilities. It may just be that he seemed like an alright guy. Well, now he seemed like a bit of a jerk, but she'd seen worse. Still, she saw something there that didn't fit with the image of Oasis that she had always imagined, which was an image of snobs and bureaucrats for anyone that cared to know. But Tesla gave off a touch of humble melancholy. She wondered why.

They turned down several more corners, elaborate ones decorated with a daft amount of technological wonders. A little much for just a few hallways, but she could see Winston doing the same thing if he had a place big enough with enough things to deck it with. Which he did, actually, and he had. Guess it was a very scientist thing to do.

They entered an elevator and began to descend. Tracer wasn't sure why she made the offer to him earlier, but in her years of missions and meeting people from all walks of life, he had that kind of vibe. Something about the way he stopped the fight as she did. The way he reacted with a slight tinge of humor after having been slammed by a flying yellow jumpsuited woman. That near ruined anyone's day, but he shrugged it off.

She timed a quick glance at him, measuring his build. He wasn't terribly gangly. His face had soft features and with sharp blue eyes lined by silver spectacles. His black hair was a bit of mess, but it seemed to have the sort of style that came from sleeping under a hair dryer. His age was probably close to hers, above or below, but too hard to tell.

"You been here long?" she said, trying to sound casual. Eventually she would lead these questions to the item in his pocket that apparently was worth more than the whole city of Oasis. But she have to be tactful and patient.

"A while," he said shortly, his hands nervously thumbing together.

She eyed him a moment more. "What's the thing in your pocket?" she asked flatly. She wasn't that patient.

"A thing," he said just as flatly.

"Eh, a bit of a smart alic, are we?" she said, smiling.

"Well if I was sounding like a chipper leprechaun _all_ the time, I might be a little more straightforward like you."

She burst out laughing, which made him jump with surprise. "Blimey, you got a tongue on you, don't you." she said, pushing his shoulder with a fist.

He seemed pretty shocked. "You're not exactly giving me the reactions I keep expecting," he said, his eyes dazed for just a moment, fading off somewhere else, but she noticed just the smallest shake of his head before turning his gaze back to the descending numbers above the elevator door. "Mostly blank stares or exasperated breaths are all I get. It's refreshing, is all I'm saying."

She nodded to herself with satisfaction. She did have a certain flare of recognizing good humor, even if it was aimed at her. "Can't help it. Why do you not like being here?"

He frowned, "I like being here."

"Nah, you don't."

"Yes, I do. This place is my home. Have you seen my room? Wait, don't answer that."

"You got this look in your eyes. I've seen it before," she said, her voice growing a little soft before she caught it. That look in his eyes haunted her. It was one she saw nearly every day, no matter how hard she tried to hide it, when she looked in the mirror. Nothing a well practiced smile and chipper tone couldn't fix, at least most of the time.

"Could you stop staring at me like that?"

"Like what," she asked.

"Like you're staring at me with an X-ray."

She grinned and shrugged, "So you're not denying that you don't like it here."

He nodded defeatedly and sighed, "Like I said. I've been here a _while._ Wanting to leave isn't all that weird."

The elevator hummed a moment more before the doors rang and slid open. Just on the other side was an exciting number of well dressed and moderately armed men and women. Dozens of white and blue uniformed men holding pistols stood at the door, accompanied by two floating bots with a single massive eye for a face.

"Oy, the weight limit is 500 Kilos. Gunna have to wait until the next one I'm 'fraid," she chortled.

They all lifted their small pistols. "Lena Oxton, you're under arrest for performing illegal activities. Your organization's authority is restricted and banned here," the front man said.

Tesla tilted his head. She hoped this wouldn't be something she wouldn't have to explain now. Turns out she was in luck.

All of their weapons began aiming away from her and him. A mixture of confused looks began popping up among their faces as they tried to pull the guns back, but with noticeable difficulty. Tesla grunted to her right, and she glanced at him to find him braced against the wall of the elevator, breathing heavily and perspiring.

"Holding back that many arms is, admittedly, a little difficult. Help? But don't kill anyone!" he managed to say through clenched teeth.

"Right!" she zipped through the center, figuring she would explain at another less gun-pointy situation that she wasn't a murderer.

The air swirled around her as she zipped from person to person, throwing a leg out to trip one here, and smacking the guns out of the hands of another one there. It was a storm of movements, her body shifting into the open areas of those moving like turtles around her. She giggled as she tucked under one, slid under a second, and popped up next to a third to knock them all over like dominoes.

One by one as she knocked them down, the guns popped out of their hands, flying wildly down the hall out of reach thanks to Tesla. In less than a few seconds, they were all disarmed.

"'Fraid you all brought a gun to a time fight," she winked, and then noticed one of the guards visibly winced at her joke. "Oy, it ain't that bad."

"Nah, it was pretty bad," Tesla chimed in.

"Tesla, what are you doing?" one of the guards demanded. "Why are you aiding in this fugitive?"

Tesla stretched his arms as he walked out of the elevator and walked in between the men. Tracer noticed he seemed perfectly calm, despite their being completely outnumbered six to one.

"I'm not helping her," he said, "I'm helping me."

The guards, she noticed, seemed to shift uncomfortably. They moved out of his way as he walked. They _respected_ him. There was a whole lot of storytelling needed to be done when the chance presented itself, but at the moment, she would take the break. It had been a while since she could just walk out with someone while being surrounded. Well, she actually had walked of plenty of situations, but this team she wasn't speeding up triple the normal flow of time to do it.

They began walking down the hall, and she saw the guards standing about awkwardly. The bots were spinning in place, looking very confused and perplexed, probably because of Tesla's odd magnetic abilities.

She had to be honest with herself. That was definitely the oddest fight she had ever encountered. Today was just getting better by the minute.

* * *

Ana sniffed the sweet herbal aroma as it drifted from her tea cup. The warm humid air dove into her lungs and warmed her chest in a way that no other drink achieved. Indeed it was ready.

She took a sip and set it down on the ledge beside her and then peered out over the city, one leg hanging over a two hundred feet drop. Now why she needed to bring tea on a several dozen floored building near the middle of Oasis was the wrong question ask. But how anyone could enjoy a glimmering sunset as it turned the sandy desert from a golden glow to a shimmering diamond landscape _without_ tea to compliment it; that was the real question.

Her eye drifted, trailing from the sun up to the smoky trail left behind in the sky. That explosion from earlier was odd, in that the trail shot straight over the city in a fine arch right before it exploded, landing most of the debris outside and likely leaving nearly zero casualties except those on board.

To the common eye, it would have gone unnoticed. And despite all of Oasis' whiles of technology and wonder, it would have missed the most obvious flaws with it too. The explosion was too perfectly timed. It would be at this precise hour that most city's security would be changing shifts and going home while the new batch came in. It was clearly staged, at least to some degree. The most curious part was what came of it.

Her trained and enhanced eye gave her the ability to see small, fast moving objects with impossible precision, and it caught something that had nearly startled her off the edge of the building. _Tracer_ had emerged from the explosion, falling. She had then awoken, corrected herself mid air, and crashed into the side of the Gilded Tower Hotel. Ana's instincts drove her to be patient and confirm her information, which is why she waited now, sipping tea and enjoying a rather lovely sunset. Tracer was a resilient soul. She would have survived the crash, Ana had no doubt. But the situation was about to get pretty hairy considering she is a extremely well known overwatch agent.

She stood up, feeling surprisingly fresh. She took another sip of her tea and turned her eye to the massive tower looming above. The Gilded Tower was truly an impressive accomplishment. The material and engineering must have cost a fortune, and it reminded her of home in some ways, when she would stare off at massive towers just after waking up to catch the sunrise.

The pleasant memory brought a smile to her lips accompanied by another bitter sweet sip of tea. That time had been so long ago, but she could remember it as clearly as though it had happened yesterday.

A ding hummed in her ear, and she rested one hand on her hip, feeling a fresh wave of warm air wash over her body from a desert breeze.

Her communicator crackled.

"Er- uh, miss, I'm not entirely sure- Miss uh," the synthetic voice stumbled over itself several more times through the radio.

"Ana will do, Blenn. Are you in position?"

"Nearly, Mistress," Blenn sizzled through the speaker. Ana chuckled softly to herself as she walked around the edge of the building and climbed through her hotel room window.

"Are you with him yet? Or her?"

The was a slight pause on the other end, "No. But I'm close! I could run fast if you'd like. Or perhaps jump a flight or two? Would you recommend?"

Ana set the teacup down. She grabbed a mask off the table and slid it over her face. As she did, the inside lit up, flickering, and then swallowed her vision. The world came to life with the slightest hint of blue. Little graphics popped up around the scene, noting objects of interest and displaying a map of the city.

"No, continue with the plan and meet me at the location as we discussed. I just need to know if it's true. Have you seen her?"

"No, I haven't, but there had been quite the commotion. Security is running about the tower, something about a fugitive loose in the hotel. I'm certain it's her."

She smiled as she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. "Let's just hope they don't do anything too stupid before we catch up. Pick me up at the agreed location, _after_ they get to you."

"Of course!" the robotic voice said from the other side before shutting off. With that, Ana grabbed a small satchel and headed out the door.

* * *

Tesla came to a stop, his heart pounding in his chest as he did. That was a one time thing. Whoever came next wouldn't just let him waltz on through like that group did, but it still left a strange thought at the back of his mind. Over a _dozen_ officers came to deal with this woman. That was a lot of firepower. In his little duel with her upstairs, she might have been toying with him and now used him like some kind of chaperone through the hotel.

He could be helping a mass murderer or bank thief to escape and he wouldn't even know. What in the world was he getting himself into?

And yet, here she was smiling nearly every second that passed, looking like she wanted to pounce and hug someone rather than unload a round of bullets into their chest. Her demeanor flared like that of a friendly neighbor, not a grizzly thug. And more odd than anything else, he actually felt _comfortable_ around her. Some part of him wanted to help her get out.

He shook the thought from his head. Looks _can_ be deceiving. The sooner they got out of the city, the better. So long as he acted like they weren't enemies, she wouldn't be a threat to him, and they could probably both make it out okay. Though despite all this fugitive stuff, he had a hard time believing this woman capable of wanting to hurt anyone. Either way, it would be the city's problem, not his.

"They'll be coming after us," Tracer noted behind him.

Several bots flew overhead, their blue glowing eyes scanning the room. One stopped to stare at them, slowing just a fraction, and then sped on. He sighed with relief. The robots couldn't identify her with visual face recognition, but Tracer was right. The word would get out, and the robots wouldn't be just looking for Tracer, but for him too. Then it was game over. Fortunately it seemed like his secret little emp had done the trick in frying their communicators. The guards hadn't sent out the word, not until they got a hold of a new devices.

He looked back at her, and sighed. "I know," he said, "But what else can we do?"

She had a little smile on her face that gave him the urge to grunt, " _What?"_

"Well, I had a little thought," she said, bouncing up next to him excitedly. "You have those little macrola-"

"Microlatches,"

"Right, those things. Couldn't we just pop on over a window or something and fall down to the needed level?"

"Don't be redi-," he stopped himself. That actually wasn't a half bad idea. The microlatches could handle his weight hundreds of times over, thousands probably. He never ran the math exactly. But they could perceivably make a shortcut. "Alright, let-"

He grunted as a tall somebody slammed into him, forcing him to spin and land on his side. His fingers reflexively tightened around his metal arm cuff, ready for an attack, but was instead startled to find the Minister staring down at him, still standing and eyes wide. The man was walking stone wall.

"Goodness, my dear boy, are you alright?" the minister partially wheezed. He was holding a pad in his hand and Tesla figured the guy was too distracted to notice anybody.

He lept to his feet, dusted his sleeves, and gave his normal, apathetic smile. "No worries, minister, just taking a walk to cool off after the explosion."

The minister knew him too well to be fooled by Tesla's look. "Are you certain you're alright?" he said, clearing his throat. His eyes turned to Lena. "Who is this woman with you? And what is that thing on her face?"

Tesla's heart jumped a beat. Luckily the minister didn't recognize her right off the bat, but he could see through every lie, every deception Tesla has ever thrown at him. This fabrication had to be perfect and well crafted. No seam in his wording left without tight placement, or bending of the truth without the perfect degree of bending.

He opened his mouth.

An arm quickly slipped around his and tightened softly. "He's my boyfriend," Lena said, smiling sweetly at the minister.

Tesla nearly fainted.

"Ah," the minister said, nodding appreciatively. "I'm glad to see you're decompression techniques have since improved from brooding to dating. A significant improvement at that. Does your mother know?"

He nearly gagged. The minister was buying it, and who asks that kind of question in front of a date anyway? "Nope," he said through a throat that had become very dry. "Not yet."

The minister shook his head and turned to Lena. "You tell this boy to message his mother.

She hardly knows a thing going on in his life. Well, best be on my way. Now I know why you were so quick to cut the communication early, Tesla." The older man gave him a wink that cued every gag reflex in Tesla's body. He didn't even know the minister had the motor skills to wink.

The minister waltzed off with a new grin that Tesla wasn't sure he liked.

"Well, quite the kerfuffle you've found yourself in, wouldn't you say?" Lena said, chipper than than a dog who had just received a treat.

"Please," he muttered, "don't try and mess up my personal life too much. He's going to tell my mother."

"Ooo, afraid mother might come calling as to why you've started dating a," she dropped her voice to the softest whisper of mock caution and leaned in to say, " _fugitive_?"

He chuckled. That was a first. He hadn't chuckled like that in some time, not since back when life was still something fun to think about.

"Oy," she said, releasing her arm and giving him a playful punch to the shoulder, "I do the chuckling around here."

He smothered the smile and shook the weird warming in his chest. No matter how personable this girl appeared, he wasn't going to drop down his guard. He wasn't that stupid. Something about her still bugged him and it would stand out eventually. That smug look of confidence, the extreme interest in science, and her general happy-go-lucky attitude seemed too familiar to ignore.

It was never too late to do some investigating. "Come on, let's get to a study balcony over here. It'll let us drop down to the travel platform."

They quickly forced their way through two large glass doors onto a fairly large deck with tables laid out. Closed parasols decorated the tables along with a set of dining wear. The place would mostly likely play host to a party or presentation soon.

Tesla rushed over to the edge and peered over. He was right. What's new there?

The open garage for this flying vehicle was just below. "I can see it," it'll only take me a second to set up," he lied. He could make the whole jump in a second, but he wasn't in any particular rush. The security officers were after her, not him, after all.

"So why are you a fugitive?" he asked, looking up at the wall above the door. There was enough ferrometals there that he wouldn't need a microlatch, but he began fiddling with his cusp just for show.

Lena shrugged, "Honestly don't know," she said. That relieved him a bit. "I guess probably because of some of the things I've done, or I guess _we've_ done in the past. Not every country is happy with our involvement in things right now. Can't say I entirely blame them. We don't have a perfect track record, not at all, but that's not really what we're all about. We have hearts we have to listen to, and ours tells us to do something about what's wrong in the world."

A chill started settling on Tesla's chest. That sounded too familiar.

"I guess," she continued, "we've tried a little too hard for some people, or we got a little too big." She gave a quiet, soft chuckle. "But we can't stop. Even after being disbanded, some of us just have to try. It's in our blood." She turned to face him and nearly jumped.

She saw it now, the cold look of anger and despair twisted all about his face. He couldn't hide it and he didn't want to, because he wanted her to see it in full force. There was something about this woman that he actually liked, that seemed real unlike the plague of artificial pleasantries that filled his life. But she turned out to be the biggest, least sincere _thing_ of them all. It bit him at his very core.

"You're _Overwatch_ ," he said in a near whisper.

Her eyes didn't break from his. "Yes," she said.

A gentle, warm wind blew across the large balcony, carrying with it a spittle of sand from some far off dune.

"Why are you here?" he asked, surprised at the sound of his own voice. It growled like rocks in a meat grinder.

"I get the feeling you're not a fan."

" _WHY_ are you here?" he nearly yelled.

"Reasons."

He scoffed, "Yeah, I bet."

A yell came from beyond the doors. Something clattered and a rush of footsteps could be heard. They had found them. Tesla stepped up onto the balcony edge and looked down at the landing below.

"Well, good luck with those," he said before falling backwards off the ledge, wishing he could scream until his throat bled as he fell. He was doing the right thing, he knew he was. A dog of the Overwatch agency deserved no more help than murderer. And yet, his stomach immediately twisted into a knot as she disappeared over the lip of the balcony.

* * *

Thanks for reading! I'm nearly done writing the first draft to chapter three and it'll be posted by next Saturday. That's the schedule I plan to keep to.

Well, hope you're enjoying the story! See you next week.


	3. Chapter 3: Family Reunion

**Chapter 3: Family Reunion**

" _Another successful test, although pretty brief. Lena appeared for three seconds exactly, just like the day before. I think there may be an important pattern there. I should also note the oddity in her patterns. No conclusion yet, but I don't think she's a part of our flow of time…"_

 _The Oxton Retrieval Project reports, Winston, Day 105, Page 1_

* * *

Tesla's heart pounded hard enough to burst through his chest.

He left her.

Given, he hardly knew the woman. They had met only thirty minutes ago, but he _left_ her. A tinge of guilt swirled up inside of him as he slowed towards the landing below, the image of her face burned into his mind as he did. While he yelled and tried to throw every ounce of disgust at her before the jump, that face of her remained resolute and frozen, not a spark of emotion leaking through.

He came to a near stop right before his feet touched the ground, and then just stood there a moment, feeling his blood rushing in his ears, breathing heavily. He could fly back up. It would only take a minute and he could save her from the people that wanted her for whatever reason.

No. He couldn't let himself do that. She was Overwatch, and they _deserved_ his hate.

He pounded off towards his vehicle, a black, sleek hover car modeled to mimic a two thousand fifteen mustang. As he approached, the door slid open and he slammed into the passenger's seat. An awkwardly tall omnic sat at the wheel, hunched over from its sky scraping proportions.

"Ah, sire!" the omnic sighed pleasantly as though it had just been spared the electric chair. "I'm glad to see you are well!"

"I'm glad to see you got my message," he shot back, rather harshly. He regretted it. Blenn was a dear companion to him, one of his only friends that he could think of besides the minister. Despite Tesla's recurring bad attitude, the robot stuck with him throughout his whole life. Given the omnic had been employed by the family as a servant, but he could leave at any time. No one required him to be there.

"Sorry," Tesla said finally, heaving a deep sigh, "It's been a rough day. Can we go?"

Strangely, the omnic did that twitch of surprise it always did when it was, well, _surprised_. Tesla eyed him and frowned. "Is that a problem?"

"No, no, no! Of course not, sire! I just thought we might be expecting, uh-," the robot tapped its chin in pondering, and then shrugged innocently. "I supposed nothing, shall we go?"

Tesla ground his teeth. The omnic was hiding something, the clues blaring out from the sudden jerky notions of its head, the tapping fingers againat the wheel, and a synthetic cough to top it all off. Frankly, the blasted omnic couldn't lie. No matter how hard Tesla tried to train him too. Normally he would grind the truth out of Blenn, but he wasn't in the mood. They needed to go, so he waved an apathetic hand at the omnic and pointed towards the window.

"Let's just go."

The omnic nodded, and off they went.

The card ride was silent, and Tesla tried to keep his teeth from smashing into dust. The day hadn't gone so well. He created the battery he always wanted and it terrified him. He abandoned a nobody and it guilted him. And his robot was lying about something and he didn't give a rat's tail. Today, Tesla felt like anything _but_ Tesla. He felt like a child in a man's body. Old emotion came gurgling up, ones he wanted to shove out, including thoughts of her.

He let out a sigh and bumped his head against the window, Lena's face staring at him in his mind as he did. They probably had her by now, dragging her to the detainment facility where she could be kept safe and contained.

The vehicle swerved off the road and floated near a small, non-important corner of the street. Blenn then parked the car, putting on the break, and sat back. Tesla frowned at him.

"Why are we stopped?"

Blenn tapped his chin again, clanking quietly. "I er-, well, I thought the view was nice," he said, pointing at the beige wall of a nearby building.

Tesla groaned, "Blenn, I'm not in the mood today. Stop tapping your chin and tell me what you're _trying_ to lie about."

"I'm not certain what you're on about, sire, I'm not lying about anything."

"Well you're definitely hiding something, so spit it out."

"Sire," the robot said with a tone so courteous that Tesla's blood nearly curdled, "I'm merely here to pick up a passenger."

"Passenger? Who?"

"I promised I wouldn't say."

Tesla stared at him. He said very slowly, "Did you now?"

Blenn nodded.

"Who is it, Blenn. Tell me."

The Omnic shook his head.

" _Blenn_."

"Sire, you can say my name as many times as you wish, I will no-,"

The back door opened and someone slipped inside. Tesla's nerves jerked and he whipped around, throwing a fist up ready to defend himself against a petit, masked woman sitting in the back. She reached up and slipped off the mask.

"Aunty?" Tesla blurted at Ana, the world renowned sniper and former overwatch agent.

The older woman smiled. "How are you doing, Tessy?"

He felt too kerfuffled to feel embarrassed at the old nickname.

The woman chuckled softly, "Don't act so surprised. You know I try to stop in regularly."

"But you're supposed to be-," he paused, looking around the street outside the car, "Well, _dead_. Oasis isn't the best place to do that."

Ana waved a dismissive hand, "Their systems aren't as impressive as they like to believe. I've been here for a few weeks, in fact." She leaned forward slightly, "The teas here are amazing."

Tesla felt as though something lifted from his shoulders at the sight of her. Aunty Ana had showed up just when he needed it. He hadn't seen her in a few years, even though he always had the sneaking suspicion that she was dropping by without his knowing. Often whenever he found an empty teacup in his room, which was pretty odd since he never drank tea and Blenn's an omnic.

Ana technically wasn't his aunt, or by any other definition. By law, she was his God Mother, but as a kid, for whatever reason, he always thought she was his aunt and they let him believe it well into his early teenage years. The nickname never left.

Her death had been a secret to everyone except one, namely his mother. She had installed Ana's first cybernetic eye and helped clean up the wound after the incident. Only his mother was supposed to know, not even his father had known, but Tesla had managed to stumble across the surgery to clean up her wounded eye. Not terribly hard to do since they decided to perform the operation in the basement of their home. Since then, a peep of it had never left his mouth and he hadn't seen her since.

"Mom asked you to check in, didn't she?" he asked.

Her smile turned slightly mischievous, "Guilty as charged. Now then, where is Tracer?"

Tesla frowned and out of the corner of his eye Blenn did that shocked flinch again. All the pieces in his mind fell into place.

"Who's Tracer?" he asked carefully.

"The woman who broke through your window. I saw it with mine own eye. Blenn?"

Blenn hesitated and then shook its head.

She slowly turned her gaze back to Tesla. "Where is she?"

He gritted his teeth. He should have known Ana would somehow be involved. "I left her. Guards were looking for her, they showed up, and though that was my chance to-" he coughed as a hand smacked him in the back of the head. It was so fast that he hadn't even seen Ana move. "What was that for?" She smacked him again.

"Blenn, take us back to the tower," she said calmly and put her seatbelt on. "Tesla, I'm very disappointed."

"Disappointed? You show up out of the blue after years without seeing you and you have the audacity to say that? She's _Overwatch!_ And you know what that means to me."

She leveled an eye at him, "I was Overwatch, if memory serves you well enough to remember."

"That's different. You left before everything went down with the civil war and all the garbage involved there."

She stared at him moment with that single eye gaze that always shut him up, whether he wanted to or not. "That woman has saved more lives than you've spent days wasting away in that tower, Tesla."

The words slit through his chest like a sharp blade and the guilt surfaced up in full force. Ana had made a point he didn't want to admit to himself. He had done the wrong thing, and he knew it. Whether he liked it or not, those agents were heroes, unlike him. A part of him wanted to yell back, but the tightness in his chest muffled the feeling. He almost felt numb.

That still didn't change what they did. Leaving Lena, or Tracer, was wrong, he'll accept that, but some part of him still thought she and every last surviving Agent of Overwatch deserved to be in jail. Ana excluded.

He shoved the thoughts away and noticed the car satl planted on the ground, unmoving. "Well? Are we going?" he said, shooting a look to the omnic.

Blenn looked at him, and then at Ana.

"Put on your seatbelt, Tessy," she said.

Tesla grunted, slipped on the seat belt and threw his arms up. "Now?" He hated how whiny he was sounding.

And they were off back to the tower to clean up a serious mess. This was not, he decided, one of his better days.

* * *

A cold, icy mountain lumbered in the distance. It waved gently, as though Tracer were looking at it through water. Somehow, she knew that place. It called to her from somewhere she couldn't quite remember.

She coughed as a wad of spit spilled out of her mouth. Darkness swallowed her vision and slowly cleared from her eyes as she blinked away the odd image of the mountain in her dreams.

It was cold, and she was shivering, and she hated shivering. Her shoulders ached and it didn't take long to figure out why. Some bloke decided to tie her hands up towards the wall behind her and her feet to the floor just below that. She was leaning forward awkwardly, hanging by her wrists. A sharp, aching pain ran down to her shoulders were the angle was making quick work on her skin and joints.

"Oy, anyone got a pack of hot rice? I got a sore something fierce on my back."

There was no reply. She couldn't believe she had the audacity to get tied up twice in one day.

A single light overhead lit her and the floor just below her. As far as she could tell, she was sitting on the edge of a world made of infinite darkness.

The events of how she got here were foggy to say the least. There was a lot of gun shots, a lot of rewinds and zipping through the air. She downed at least fifty guards before they finally got her. Or at least twenty guards. Or five. But no doubt that whatever it was that happened, it was quite heroic and they were all very impressed by it. She didn't have to be conscious to know that.

The memory stirred the image of Tesla back to mind. The man stood on the rail of the balcony, glaring at her with eyes fiercer and with more fiery than she had seen in years. That kind of look came from a lot of bad history of some sort. Even though she didn't know the guy, it still stung just a bit. A lot of people have given her a similar glares over the years, ever since Overwatch shut down, but his were straight up laserbeams. She wondered what could have brewed such a passionate feeling of hate.

Her heart stopped as her brain caught up to the moment for the first time. She wore a blue jumpsuit with white highlights, not her own clothing. That meant someone had taken Winston's memory device with the information about the Slipstream; those jerks. When she finally met these people, she'd give them a right talking to with a blustering bunch of slangs they couldn't hope understand, unless they were british.

A clacking noise sounded from within the shadows. A beam of light split through and two silhouetted figures made their way, sauntering towards her with precisely calculated steps and straight back postures. They walked with such determination and exactness that she knew immediately who they were, and she groaned tiredly.

"Evil scientists," she sighed as they walked up to her. Their faces did come into view, but it didn't give a lick of help to her. Dorky google covered half their faces, obscuring their features. They muttered to themselves, pointing at a tablet the lady one held. She indicated the restraints and then hit a knob. Immediately the strain in her hands eased as the binding let her finally rest after what must have been hours of hanging. The restraints lowered enough that she could rest her arms at her sides. That was a right mistake on their part.

She rewound immediately, time sliding her back up and freeing her hands. She threw her hand out to grab the first scientist and then screamed as it collided with a forcefield. Hot flashes of pain arched through her wrist and elbow.

Blimey she still had a good arm for hitting. Shocker that forcefield held up.

"Sorry, we should have warned you about the shield!" The science lady said, who was now holding a hand too her mouth.

"Where am I? One second I was on a balcony like thing and now I'm here," Tracer said, her tongue feeling fat in her mouth. They must have put her on some strong drugs. Smart. Her body, for unknown reasons, had the capacity to process toxins at an accelerated rate. They probably dumped a horse's portion or two into her body just to keep her asleep.

She shook her groggy head, and rewound a little bit more just to heal the broken hand.

"This facility doesn't technically have a name, not on any official record." The man said, who was still tapping away at some kind of tablet.

"Great, so I get to name it then? I was thinking trashcan, or bubbles if doesn't sound flashy enough."

The lady scientist chuckled. The man scientist didn't. What a punts.

"So what's on the menu today. Poking, prodding, and probing most likely? If we could fast forward to the part where I break out, that'd be great."

"We're not going to harm you, Lena Oxton. You're too valuable to us," the man said, "But we do need answers, and that may require certain uncomfortable," he paused, "sensations."

Tracer rolled her eyes. She had felt this day might come. Being under the proverbial microscope was an inevitability considering she sort of didn't play well with the laws of time and space like most folk did. But in the history of her abilities, no one had the audacity to capture her, mainly because she had an army of super heroes at her back to bail her out as needed.

Then again, that super hero agency was slow booting. There were probably only a handful who had even responded to Winston's call. They didn't know where they were and most, if not all, were currently preoccupied with the second omnic crisis. Blimey, she might be in _actual_ trouble for once. But she didn't know the full breadth of her powers, so no sense in giving up now.

"Right, so I can expect pain, nothing fancy there. What's the plan?"

The scientist placed the tablet on the table and gestured to his female partner.

She cleared her throat. "We've tried reproducing your condition hundreds of times, and to no avail. You're quite the unique coincidence."

"Thank you."

"However, we have a deadline and, well, our sponsor wants us to speed things up, which is why you're here."

She rolled her eyes again, "typical. You know, the smartest scientist in the world tried to do this very thing and he had me as a volunteer at the time. If he couldn't figure it out, what makes you think you can?"

The woman looked at the man and he didn't even bother to look at Tracer as he said it. "Morals."

She gulped.

* * *

The minister stared wide eyed at Tesla. "Confound it, boy! You know what kind of liability that was! She's a fugitive." The minister threw his arms out wildly in frustration like some crazed clown. "Your room is covered with members of the team of investigation. They're going to recreate everything from the data they gather and find out exactly what happened."

 _Or they would certainly try_ , Tesla thought. His room was designed to counteract every single one of their scans and devices. The most they'll be able to identify is that he was in the room with Tracer, and, yeah, that was about it.

"Listen, I know, Minister, and I'm sorry," though he really wasn't, "but I need to talk to her."

The minister gave a puff of frustrated breath, clearly exasperated that Tesla wasn't listening. They stood back in his office, alone. The others stood outside where the minister wouldn't pry too deeply into Ana's identity which would be a whole new can of worms.

"Well how can I grant you that?" the man muttered before sitting back in his chair. "I'm not over that department. They took her who knows where and that's that."

Tesla frowned, "They didn't take her to the detention center?"

The minister paused and then slowly shook his head. "No, I suppose they didn't."

"Where else could they take her? That's quite literally the only place they could take her legally."

The minister rushed to his feet and shoved a finger at him. "This is the last straw, Tesla. You've failed your experiments. You've failed this department. And you've failed _ME_. I've put my neck on the line for you countless time. Now drop the matter this instant and report to the team of investigation, answer all their question."

"Minister, I-,"

"No!" the minister yelled, his voice shaking Tesla to the core. The minister had never yelled before, even at the worst of times. "Get out of my sight, and do as I say."

Tesla lingered only a moment before turning around and leaving the room. He hesitated outside the door, the weight of everything briefly slamming against him. His life was ruined. His room would be stripped apart. The only minister backing him in his research would likely drop him after all these years. And to top it all off, he didn't feel comfortable in oasis anymore. Originally he had planned to come back after keeping his device safely hidden and then continue the research and figure out why it worked at all. Now he figured that would never happen.

His teeth tightened together. None of this would have happened if that Overwatch agent hadn't broken through his window.

He flinched. A subtle, dull ache began to form in his knees and elbows, breaking him from his spat of internal frustration. The pains came always came after a few days without a recharge. At some point, it would begin to ache in his knuckles, wrists, and neck, like something wrapping around each joint and slowly tightening. He could probably make it a few more days before the main became unbearable.

The door gently shut behind him, knocking him from his thoughts. Blenn and Ana emerged from behind a pillar.

"Are you alright?" Ana said, lightly grabbing his elbow, "you're pale."

He cleared his dry throat, "I'm fine," he said through a cracking voice, "just a little shell shocked. The minister is not happy with me, a running trend with a lot of people recently," he gave what he thought was a laugh, but it sounded like a gurgle sigh.

He cleared his throat. "But he won't help us, I don't even know if he can. All I know is that she wasn't brought to the detention center."

"I was afraid of that," Ana said, her accent becoming a little thicker. Something that often happened, he noticed, when she was nervous. Nothing phased that woman, or apparently almost nothing, so he couldn't help but feel a little nervous himself.

"I believe this is quite intentional," she said at last. "That explosion from earlier, the crashing ship, felt very staged. I reached out to a contact from Overwatch and learned that Tracer had intentionally let herself be captured. I'm worried that, somehow, someone knew that Tracer would be captured and which ship she would be attempting to get aboard."

"Alright, so she was on the ship that exploded and ended up in my room, nearly killing me in the process. But why? Why my room and why Oasis?"

She shrugged, "honestly, I don't have all the answers. I have confidence that your room was an accident. Too hard to predict. But they most likely wanted her to be in Oasis for various reasons," she paused, "I'm not sure for what. But if it is intentional, then it means there's another force at play here outside of Talon. We need to be careful."

Tesla nodded, his mind spinning. He had no idea who Talon was, but it didn't sound great. Just a few days ago he was punching numbers, running calculations, and playing with the laws of physics in his spare time, and now he was on a rescue mission for someone who needed rescuing because of him. This wasn't his shindig, not anymore. He wanted just one thing, and that was to be out of this city and away from everything for a while.

"So, do you think you can find her?" Tesla asked.

Her lips curled into a smile he hadn't seen in some time. One of intimate confidence. "Dear, we know with a little teamwork _anything_ can happen."


	4. Chapter 4: Uncertain Promises

**Chapter 4: Uncertain Promises**

 _"Another successful test! Two minutes over the expected duration period. She has more control than she knows. If only I could show her that..."_

The Oxton Retrieval Project reports, Winston, Day 205, Page 1

* * *

His joints ached. His brain ached. His _everything_ was in an all around jumble of achiness, and it didn't show many signs of letting up. They had been tracking Tracer for a few days now with no signs of progress. After a few good hours of feeling useless, he left to grab some more tea bags for Ana while she worked and to give himself a reprieve. Meanwhile, his world around him continued to plummet to an everlasting state of decay.

When they met the minister several days before, they had snuck in. When they left, they snuck out. Mostly because he had _technically_ committed a crime aiding a fugitive's escape. The team of investigation plus a couple dozen other agencies were now out using their most advanced surveillance technology to track him down after he didn't show up for interrogation. And he wished them luck on that venture. He had spent half of his free time devising ways of avoiding every form of Oasis detection.

But that wasn't really the issue. The issue is that he had become a criminal.

Just the other day, life gave him the proverbial slap to the face along with a dose of reality. On his way to grocery store for another reprieve, his face sat beaming from a wanted poster. Well, it was more of a "cautionary" suspects list, so no money involved, but the shock hit him all the same.

Tesla Dorn was a wanted man accused of " _aiding in the escape of a fugitive,_ " it had said. A little dramatic for his taste, but the implications left him with a knot in the stomach. Where it would have been difficult to rebuild his life before, it would be impossible now. How would he tell his mom? Where could he even go after this? Oasis was _the_ capital of technological research.

He lumbered up the stairs, a bag of groceries in one hand, his other hand thumbing the battery in his pocket. Every step felt heavier than normal. The aches had grown slightly over the last few days, and without a charger, it would only get worse. In a week, he would be in serious trouble, where the pain would slowly become unbearable. But he wouldn't let it get that far, not if he could help it.

He entered the hotel room, slipping off his strangely shaped sunglasses and throwing them onto the nearby table. Ana sat a desk on the far end of the room, sipping at a cup of tea. He shook his head. That had to be her seventh cup by now. How she managed to drink half a gallon of tea left him with a mixture of admiration and concern.

As he set the bag on the table, his eyes flickered over to the sunglasses that protected his identity from the visual sensors. The reality of his situation sunk deeper. This wasn't his life anymore, and he wanted out.

"You really should have let me grab those, sire," the lumbering omnic said as he walked up. Not a second later than walking in, Blenn was up and about to assist him. He already grabbed the groceries and started sorting them by the time Tesla slipped off his jacket.

"I needed a breath of fresh air," he said, throwing the jacket onto a nearby couch. "Any luck?"

Blenn shook his head gently.

"Not very promising," Ana said from her chair. "You did get more tea, did you?"

"Yes, Aunty, I got your favorite."

She leapt up excitedly, surprisingly spry considering her age. "Just what I needed to hear. How have our neighbors outside been acting?" she asked.

He shrugged, ignoring the tightness in his shoulder as he did. "Better, I think. Fewer watch bots out then two days ago. But I think they're onto me. I don't know how much longer the sunglasses will protect any one of us."

"Mmm," she said, nodding as she opened the box to grab another pouch of tea, "The search on my end has hit another wall. None of my contacts in the city have heard a thing. She's seemingly disappeared."

Tesla nodded, that sinking feeling in his stomach growing ever deeper. Oasis had it's oddities and its secrets. For the last few days, he tried to ignore that feeling in the back of his mind of rumours he had heard once a long time ago. No point in putting it off any longer, no matter how much he wanted to.

"There may be something else we haven't considered," he said hesitantly.

Ana perked up, "Mm?"

He sighed and shrugged regrettably, "There's a place that I've heard the Minister talk about once called the Pit. It's no secret that Oasis blurs the line when it comes to deciding what is socially acceptable as _moral_ research, the classic 'the ends justify the means' if you catch my drift."

"Well, anyway,, the pit is the place that would make even the ministers blush. And," he said, gritting his teeth, "wouldn't be a thing if Overwatch were still around."

Ana stared at him a moment, that knowing eye of hers probing into his face. "Sounds like mostly rumours. But for every rumour, a grain of truth often follows. How do we find it?"

Tesla looked over at Blenn who shook his head slowly, pleadingly. "I know a gal."

Blenn sighed, his massive shoulder slumping into a slouch, "Sire, you _promised_ we wouldn't speak on this again."

"True," he admitted with a jolt of guilt, "But she's the only person who could possibly hope to know how to find The Pit, if it even exists."

"Oh dear," Blenn said, further slumping into a nearby chair, "Oh dear, oh dear…"

" _She?_ " Ana asked, raising a brow as Tesla.

"Blenn's _ex_ , Levina" Tesla said, staring as the omnic shook its head "It was an interesting situation to say that least."

"I don't doubt it," Ana said, nodding.

After a moment, Blenn visibly shook his head and stood up. "Very well. For the better of all, I will do it. But I have one condition." He jabbed a finger at Tesla, "You have to figure out how to get us out of this situation."

Tesla sighed. Blenn deserved a fair deal in this case. "Done."

Ana smiled, "What a pleasant surprise. Let's gather our things a go then. I'll just have to wait befor-," she stopped, frowning at the box of tea. "This isn't my favorite," Ana said, shooting a look at Tesla.

He resisted a frown and shrugged, again ignoring the pain in his shoulders, and in his knees, and in his _everything_. "Didn't sleep well last night," he said truthfully. Though apparently he didn't realize how it affected him. He would have sworn green tea was Ana's favorite. He needed sleep.

Ana stared at him again, the eye seeing right through him.

"Are you sure you're feeling alright?" she asked, "I noticed you favoring your left leg early today."

 _Blasted leg,_ he thought, wishing he could kick himself. "I'm fine. I'll take a nap after our visit with Levina or something. I mean, if we make it out alive."

She eyed him a moment more and then nodded. "Then we better move quickly."

She turned around and headed off to her room. Tesla stood there a moment, that sinking feeling remaining annoyingly present.

"You're worried," Blenn said, speaking up only after Ana had disappeared out of sight. "You need to recharge."

"It's not just that, Blenn," he said, his voice icy, "I don't want to help her."

His omnic friend didn't even flinch. He stared at him, his glowing eyes leveled with his. "I think you underestimate yourself, sire."

Tesla scoffed and snatched his sunglasses from the table. "I think I know exactly what I'm capable of, and that overwatch rat isn't worthy of it."

He slipped the sunglasses on, ignoring Blenn's eyes on him as he moved to grab his backpack. But to Tesla's surprise, Blenn remained silent, not saying a word all the way up until they left.

* * *

Everything inside shook. Every atom. Every particle that made up Tracer's essence. Inside and out, a storm passed through her screaming from every imaginable and unimaginable direction. The world, or something like it, hovered beneath and above at the same time like a blue, glowing cloud of energy. And it tore through her like a hot blade of metal. She wanted to yell, but her voice left her, disappearing into infinity.

They had taken her chrono accelerator. And without it, she had become nothing but pain and emptiness all at the same time.

She just wanted to cry, or anything that would give her form. But in this world, she existed as nearly nothing. Air had more density than she did.

A glow of light swirled around her and she felt strangled as something seemed to wrap against her cloudy form. An image flashed before her eyes of that distant icy mountain she saw before, but now she stood behind window, and a near stranger stared back at her, eyes wide. She had white hair, snow white, with sharp green eyes. And the face stared back, as though it were someone else.

Her body zapped back together and she collapsed against the ground, a crackle of pain ringing from her back to her fingertips. The image faded and a gasp of air forced itself into her lungs as she rolled to her streamed down her face as she finally cried from what felt like an eternity of waiting.

After a few minutes, or hours, she sat up. They had moved her to a bigger cage. The first was just a test to make sure they _could_ contain her without risk of escape. Once they figured that tidbit out, the real fun began. In a sheer act of humanity they decided it'd be a grand idea to take her chronal accelerator. For the first few minutes she could retain herself, but that didn't last for much. Then the _Nightmare_ returned.

Nearly a decade had passed since Winston anchored her back to Earth, away from _that_ place. Despite all that time, she never forgot a moment there, teetering on the edge of total oblivion, but never crossing over. She shoved her hands into her armpits, trying to stop the shaking that raked her body to the bones. It didn't help.

The evil scientists had thrown her ten times back into the Nightmare, _ten times._ She guessed it had only been a few days since her capture, but it felt like months. Tomorrow they would do it again, and again, and for however long they needed to get _results_. She had become something she never realized she feared. An experiment.

She planted her head into her knees, smashing the tears into the blue jumpsuit, trying to hide her pain. It didn't help either.

After a very successful bawl, she ripped her face away, bearing a wide smirk. "Oy," she said, her voice sounding as try as autumn leaves, "Think you stopped too soon, mates. Almost found myself out that time," she said, trying to leap to her feet before quickly crashing back down to her knees. She bet that looked impressive.

The scientists, naturally, ignored her. She had gotten the lady one to at least tell her name, Lillyanna, but everyone else had remained contently quiet, the jerks.

"It was a 100% contact," the man she now called Long-nose said. "I think she's about ready."

"Point two percent increase in mass. Is that expected?" Lillyana said.

Long-nose stared at the data and shook his head. "Seem negligible. It's to be expected with this kind of spatial warping."

Tracer gritted her teeth. They had been throwing percentages around for the last couple of days and haven't given her a lick of information to what any of it meant. She sighed irritably, realizing her irresistible charm wouldn't get her much of anywhere today than it did, well, since her arrival. So with nothing else to do, she slumped against the floor, rolled over, and tried to fall asleep without crying this time.

The hours rolled by in flashes with brief moments of awareness flashing into her consciousness like lightening. At times she thought she could hear the crackling noise of the machine activating, meaning another trip to the Nightmare, but only awoke to an empty dark room. Other times she could see strange memories blink into her dreams, some of which she didn't quite remember having. Sometimes she was in the Slipstream as she disintegrated on the first jump, becoming almost nothing.

She snapped awake, heart thumping in her chest as the image of crashing in her mind sizzled away. When she reached to rub her eyes, her cheeks felt wet to the touch, and noticed a small pool on the floor. Her eyes stayed on the small puddle, wondering if she had gotten any good sleep at all. Probably not.

Her thoughts slowly turned back to Tesla as he jumped over the ledge. She had thought on him a few times over the last two days, wondering why he had been so angry at her in the first place. Looking at the situation now, she would probably never find out, something she thought for the best. Some part of her thought she should hate him, and she might have if it weren't for the overall sensation of _death_ exploding inside her body. And honestly, she had no idea who he really was, or why he hated her.

A memory drifted from somewhere deep inside she had been trying to forget. She saw the crowds screaming, a limp omnic collapsed on the ground. Widowmaker's laugh echoing through her mind. She slipped her head inbetween her legs again, letting the image and all of the feelings that came with it crush her inside out.

She had failed again. The slipstream had exploded. Mondatta had died. The second uprising was booming with life. And she couldn't even run a simple surveillance job. Now they would pull all kinds of secrets about her _condition_ and do who knows what with it. And it was her fault. Maybe that's why she didn't feel angry at Tesla. For all she knew, he had good reason to be angry. And blimey she felt that anger towards herself. She was a failure.

The door swooshed and slid open. She whipped her head from her legs and launched to her feet, reflexes and training kicking in. A lone figure stepped into the room. He crossed his way until he came up to the console and then stood there, staring at it.

"Forgot to logout of facebook, did'ya?" she said, walking over and leaning against the forcefield.

"You know," the cool, smooth voice responded back up to her. "I gave you those guns hoping to prevent this."

She paused. That voice sounded vaguely familiar. " _Barkface?_ "

The figure leaned down, holding his chin. "I don't think I can shut down the shield," he said.

"Woah, wait a minute. What rubbish is this. Who are you? Friend or enemy?"

The figure paused and then sighed, resting two hands on his hips. "At the moment, friends."

" _At the moment?_ Then why are you helping me?" she spat out.

"Does it really matter?" he said.

"Well, yeah, it is to me. You can't be indifferent going about breaking people out wherever you like."

"You rather I leave then?" he said, tilting his head.

She threw up two hands, the very thought tensing her nerves. "I want out. I'm sorry. It's been a rough few days."

"I know." he said, the faint tone of regret in his voice. "Hopefully that won't last much longer. I have a plan, but I'll need another day to set everything up, maybe more."

Her stomach twisted. "Another day or _more_? Seems a bit long, don't you think?" The thought of enduring another trip in the Nightmare sent a shiver down her spine.

"At this time, it's the best I can do. These systems are heavily secured. One wrong wire touched and everyone in Oasis will know I'm here. Last out until then," he said, and turned to leave the room.

"Wait!" she cried, pressing up against the shield. "Can you atleast damage the machine, or something. Make it so it won't work? Please, just for the morning."

The man stopped. "I'm sorry, it's too risky. Just hold on," he said and paused another moment. "You're not alone. Not yet." And then he was gone.

Tracer felt a mixture of hope and distress. Hope that she had a way out. Distress that she would have to take another trip down an unpleasant road.

She stared as the door closed behind Barkface, wondering who he was and why he was helping. And more oddly, how did he survive the explosion of the airplane?

* * *

In a places like oasis, there were no slums. There was no dark alley with musky smells and sketchy men and woman loitering about. Aristocrats, book worms, scientist, and the ilk made up nearly a hundred percent of the population. That's what made it so hard to identify who the thugs were, because they were usually buried in a book while they stood on guard or watched for prey. And contrary to the setting around them, it was a dangerous place to be.

Given, a thug around here meant someone trying to steal your research, which was terrifying for a scientist such as Tesla. He found himself thumbing the battery in his pocket. He needed to get it as far away from Oasis as possible, when the chance felt like coming around.

He looked up at the tall library, three spires lining the staircase up to massive doors. It may have looked like a normal library, and it operated like one too, but many years ago it had become something a lot more sinister in disguise.

They walked up into a library filled with actual books. Books were one of those ageless things Tesla had come to adore. He loved the smell of old pages and leather wafering about the room, filling his mind with the anticipation of change that came from reading a book. A new book meant a new perspective on the world. He could see places no one else did, places that didn't even exist. A good book could expand one's vision of the universe and the creatures that filled it. He got a little tinge of excitement just being in the room.

They walked in between several pillars and rounded towards the center of the room where a hulkish omnic's massive form sat like a boulder over the guest's service desk. It's massive hand reached down and turned the page of a tiny book hilariously disproportionate to its size. He leaned on the table where a noticeable crack danced away from its elbow. The poor desk didn't stand a chance.

The omnic raised a head at them. "Come to check out a book?"

"I'm afraid it's a rainy day and I'm looking for a pick me up," Blenn responded back with the code word.

"It'll be gone by the evening, sometime after ten," the massive omnic continued.

"But by then I'll be asleep, and without my warm milk to help me rest."

The giant nodded and shoved a thumb back at a set of stairs directly behind him. Blenn nodded courteously.

"I'm surprised to see you here, Blenn. Thought you'd be gone for sure," the giant lumbered to on side. "You not a fan of freedom?"

Tesla felt for his buddy as the skinny, tall omnic gave a bulky shrug. "I just thought I'd drop in."

The massic grunted and shrugged in return. "Red, 12, 2. Don't forget to say please."

Blenn nodded before they headed for the stairs and found themselves in a small room chromatically organized in books. Each shelf held a single color of books such as red, blue, green, and all the other colors in the rainbow.

They walked to the red shelf and pulled the twelfth book on the second row. "Please," Tesla said to no one in particular.

There was a crackle and clank as another set of stairs formed in the middle of the room.

"A little cheesy, don't you think?" Ana said as they made their way down the stairs.

"It's her way of doing things. The A.I. Minister had a flair for fantasy novels with castles and dungeons. I think it rubbed off on Levina somewhere along in her creation process."

"Speaking of which. How did he managed to create an omnic? The machines to build an omnic are hardly what I would call inexpensive, and there aren't many either."

Tesla gave a shrug, "Great question. No idea. Despite oasis' admirable ideals, it's run by quite a few people with questionable pasts. I guess he had a connection or two."

They followed an irritatingly long tunnel, definitely lengthened for ominous flare. The ache in Tesla joints were beginning to grow as they strutted down. It's been growing little by little, reminding him he needed to charge.

Eventually they were led into a massive room. And by massive, Tesla noticed it was football fields in length and height.

"Well, they've done some remodeling," he muttered.

A couple of carriers sat along the wall, each with a platform next to it holding metal crates filled with all kinds of illegal merchandise. A squadron of omnics worked, organized, lifted, and managed the system. It looked efficient, without a single bit of energy wasted by one worker. They moved like clogs against one another, acting and reacting in turn.

One of the Omnics noticed them and visibly jumped at the sight of Blenn. He tapped the shoulder of a fellow omnic who gave a near clone like response. The second ran off as the first ran towards them, using one hand to hold a red colored baseball hat.

It stepped up, huffing. It was weird to find omnics that did that. They didn't need to huff like a human, but a few chose to anyway. Probably made them feel more alive.

"Blenn, it is you!" the gangly robot cackled and shook its head, "You crazy pile of rust. You dog. Couldn't stay away, could you?"

Blenn was noticeably introverted and hesitant to respond. The poor omnic didn't have many in the way of friends. His only real friend was Tesla himself, a human. Even then, Tesla wouldn't exactly call himself the picture perfect example of friendship. Even with Blenn's previous experience with Levina, the omnic still didn't _jive_ well with the other omics for whatever reason. A few treated him amiably enough, but most probably did it because Levina would crush them into soda cans if they didn't.

The baseball cap omnic gave him a playful punched to the shoulder. "C'mon, dude, you coming to stick around for good? We could use another player at black jack!"

"I've just come to see Levina is all. Then I'll be on my way," he said in a polite, timid tone and he tap two fingers together at his waste. "Where is she?"

The omnic tilted its head disbelievingly, "Where do you think?"

Blenn nodded grimly and led them away, through the throngs of working omnics and up a set of several stairs.

"Must be quite the woman," Ana whispered at his side.

Tesla nodded discreetly. "You don't know the half of it."

They continued their way through a number of other chambers, some looking to be kinds of storage rooms filled with various packaged and unpackaged objects ranging from weapons, technologies, and even what looks to be a vehicle room of sorts. It took them an annoying five minutes to make their way to an elaborate hallway and to a massive door where six omnics stood guard and holding beastly guns. When Tesla and the rest entered the room, they all gave their own startled reaction at Blenn.

He was a tall omnic, above average thanks to the design tweaks by Tesla's father. But it was probably more of the history behind Blenn that stirred up a mutter of conversational whispers.

Blenn, Tesla, and Ana arrived at the door. He gave three, curt knocks. A moment later, the door swung inward revealing a scrawny, older man, a human. It was the first human that they had seen so far in the whole facility. Tesla felt tempted to inquire further, but now wasn't the best time to get into the topic.

They entered the room and Tesla could feel Ana jump a little when Levina came into view. She had probably expected something far larger and more intimidating, but Levina was completely the opposite. Well, at least in _appearance_.

She was a smaller omnic, a little over five feet, but looked nothing like a robot. Her frame was filled in full with plating and organic looking joints. She had long red hair hanging in swaths of light sunny curls behind her back. Her face looked and moved like that of a human, the metallic sheen seeming soft instead of hard. She wore colorful clothes, the modern oasis tunic and tassels mixed with glowing lines around the neck and waist. All in all, she could have fooled anyone were it not for two two things.

Her eyes had no pupils, and instead looked to be made of solid blue glass. Next those, two lines ran down her face, as though three plates fitted tightly together.

She spoke into an intercom on the desk, lips moving and all, and doing so it quite the irritated tone.

"Listen, you little nut. If you don't settle for six thousand per kilo I'll personally come there and _crush_ you into ones and zeroes. You got me? No one will-," she stopped as her head swung towards the door. Her hand dropped to the table, shutting off the comm. Tesla felt his nerves tighten and he was sure he just saw a spark shoot out somewhere from Blenn's neck joint.

"Blenn!" she yelled and in one bound she landed right in front of him, wrapped both arms around him, and the lifted him up in the most comical bear hug he had ever seen. Blenn was a relative giant and she a small elf in comparison.

"M-Mistress Levina," he said, his voice barely suppressing his depression.

"It's been so long, my love! But I knew you would come back, I had no doubt at all! You have no idea what it's like to not have you at my side, constantly supporting me moment by moment, every second of every day." That was an understatement.

She set him down and her glassy eyes quickly turned to Tesla. "You brought _him_?"

Blenn held up his hands uncertainly, as though he felt he should make some gesture.

"Guards!" she quacked, "Kill this human and toss his body somewhere smelly."

The doors burst open and several omnics poured through, guns at the ready. Tesla tensed, dropping to a defensive posture. He figured it might come to this, and he was ready.

"W-wait, please! I need your help!" Blenn cried, running in between the guards and Tesla.

Levina held up her hands and the omnic guards stopped.

Tesla felt his hair rise, he half expected an outburst of anger and insult, but to his surprise, there was none. Levina turned her massive blue eyes back to Blenn and smiled broadly.

"Anything for my Sweet Blennyboo!"

Tesla looked over to see Ana staring right back at him. He didn't need to see her face to know that it winced at the pet name.

"Under one condition, of course," she chimed. "We kill your human pet and you stay here with me from now on!"

And this is where things got complicated. He wish he had more time to explain it to Ana before arriving, but this was actually a pretty dangerous place to Tesla to be. Amongst the many other people he had rubbed the wrong way in Oasis, none sat hire at the food chain than Levina. No one hated, despised, and loathed him more than her. Every sensation she had for Blenn turned out to be the exact opposite for him.

Blenn and Tesla sighed in unison.

"We can't make that deal, Levina, no matter how many times you ask" Tesla chimed in finally, deciding to skip over any chance of formal greetings.

She grunted, "I could just kill you here. I wouldn't even need help from them."

Ana was definitely going to inquire further into this afterwards.

"Look, Levina," Tesla said, straining to keep his tone soft. She really could kill him if she wanted too. "If you'd like, maybe we could make some _other_ kind of deal for the help."

Blenn straightened a little. "It would mean a great deal to me if we could receive this help. There is someone in grave danger."

The womanly omnic stood, arms folded, staring at Tesla without breaking. The pale gaze of those glassy eyes always made him uneasy, no matter how many times she had thrown them at him.

"What is it you need?" she said, looking towards _Blennyboo._

"Ah, well, we're trying to find the location of a secret operations facility. We thought you might know where it is."

If she had pupils, she probably would have rolled them. Instead she wobbled her head in exasperation. "The Pit?" she asked.

Blenn and Tesla perked up.

"You know about it?" Blenn asked.

"Know about it? They're one of my biggest customers. They've asked for all _sorts_ of oddities. I try not to think about it too much. It's mostly humans there anyhow," she said that last bit like something sour slipped into her mouth. "So, you want to know where it is, or you want help getting in. Which is it?"

"Er uh," Tesla muttered quietly, catching a shared glimpse with Blenn.

"Both," Ana chimed it at last. She had been strangely quiet and unnoticed. "We need its location and a way in, if you can provide."

Levina jerked as though she had only noticed the masked person for the first time, her eyes growing wide with surprise. She rushed forward with blurring speed. Tesla tensed, ready to leap to Ana's aid, but it was too late. The omnic had her in a bear hug as well, swinging the old woman about.

"Oh Ana, how I've missed you! You don't write enough," Levina said sourly. "You know I like your letters."

Tesla's mouth dropped open. "You _know_ her?"

"Well of course I know her. I know anyone worth knowing. Which doesn't explain how I know anything about _you_. Waste of my time," she said in a not so subtle mutter. "But the mask did throw me off, Sweety. I like it, very _you_."

It dawned on Tesla that Ana's surprised jerk from earlier must have been one of recognition, and not, well, _surprise._

"Levina and I go back a few years. I had no idea you ran such an operation. It's quite impressive, dear."

Levina smiled proudly, "Isn't it though? I smuggle all sorts of contraband. It's great!"

"You'll have to give me a tour."

"Oh how that woul-,"

"Is there _any_ chance that we could get back to the issue at hand?" Tesla interrupted, this time letting the irritation come out in full force. The pain was getting to him, but this wasn't gossip time. "There's a life hanging in the balance."

"No harm in a little friendly catching up, Tesla," Ana responded, "But he is right. Will you help us?" she said towards Levina.

Levina paused and then turned back to her desk. She walked over and sat down in a massive, plump red chair that almost seemed to swallow her. "I've got mixed feelings on the matter. I'd do anything for Bennyboo. And for you, Ana. But the idea of helping... _him_ perturbs me."

She cringed, and made a swallowing noise as though she were trying to force something back down into her stomach that had just come up. It took all of Tesla's strength not to sigh. She didn't even have a stomach.

"What kinda offer you got for me, boy?" she said, and begun to expect her fingers as though they had nails.

Tesla stood there and noticed that Ana and Blenn were looking at him. Since when had he become the spokesman? It had been his idea to come up with an offer in the first place, but now they were expecting him to do all the work.

He suppressed another sigh and rubbed back of his kneck. "I could pay-," he stopped himself right there at the look on her face. He couldn't possibly pay her enough. She had built an _entire_ smuggling facility under Oasis, and that would have cost five or seven fortunes.

His eyes slowly drew themselves to Blenn who was tapping his fingers together anxiously and hopefully at the same time. An idea slowly brewed in his mind, emerging from the foggy mist of his thoughts. With it came a twinge of guilt, but they were running out of time. The sooner he could get Ana in, the sooner he could kiss Oasis and this whole crazy fanfare goodbye.

"Blenn could visit," he said, keeping eye contact with his omnic friend, "Without my accompanying him."

Both Blenn's and Levina's heads jerked towards him simultaneous.

"But I'm no-,"

"Done!" Levina blurted out. "I can have you there in by tomorrow morning. They're expecting a new shipment of CyronRelays. Why they need fifty kilos of them is a mystery to me, but what do I care, right?"

Ana nodded in satisfaction, and Blenn sagged slightly, his shoulder slumping. Somewhere in the back of Tesla's mind he knew he had crossed the line again. Blenn had always been a dear, consistent, and dedicated friend. In one moment, he had slapped all of that in the face. For the first time in years, Tesla felt that cold, dark realization creep back into his mind.

He would never be worthy of his father's name. He would never be the hero his father had been.


End file.
